ABSTRACT
Tuberculous lymphadenitis is not uncommon in Korea. Therefore, an inexpensive, safe and rapid method is needed to diagnose the tuberculous lymphadenitis. Fine needle aspiration cytology is a good method for this purpose, but has several limitations in the diagnosis of tuberculous lymphadenitis, especially when the presence of acid-fast bacilli is not proved. To evaluate the usefulness of the polymerase chain reaction with enzyme immunoassay technique in the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) in the cervical lymph node aspirates, the authors performed fine needle aspiration cytology and M. tuberculosis PCR with enzyme immunoassay for mycobacterial DNA sequences from 15 cases of the fine needle aspirates. Cytomorphologically, the cases were categorized into three types: predominantly necrotic materials; typical epithelioid cell granulomas with or without giant cells and caseous necrosis; and non-tuberculous lesions, such as reactive lymphadenitis, abscess, metastatic carcinoma and malignant lymphoma. M. tuberculosis DNA was found in 8 of 15 cases by PCR with enzyme immunoassay. Negative findings on PCR were achieved in 7 cases, which revealed non-tuberculous lymphadenopathy. In conclusion, we suggest that M. tuberculosis PCR with enzyme immunoassay using the fine needle aspirates is a very useful tool for the diagnosis of tuberculous lymphadenitis.